Awareness of Climate Change and Sustainable Development among Undergraduates from two Selected Universities in Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated awareness of climate change and sustainable development among undergraduates in twouniversities: University of Ibadan, Ibadan and Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso in Oyo Stateof Nigeria. This was aimed at increasing the knowledge of undergraduates on climate change and sustainabledevelopment.The study adopted a survey design. The population for the study consisted of 300 hundred undergraduates inUniversity of Ibadan, Ibadan and Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso in Oyo State, Nigeria. Thestudents were selected using purposively random sampling technique. A 45-item each with Likert type responseformat titled ‘’Awareness of Climate Change and Sustainable Development among Undergraduates Students’’tagged ACCSDUS were administered. Data obtained were analyzed using simple percentages and t-test.The results showed that undergraduates possessed high level of awareness on the concept of climate change, haveaccess to the sources of information and factors of personal experience, public sources and education greatlyinfluence their awareness. The results further showed that there was no significant difference in the level of climatechange and sustainable development awareness in term of gender (t= 0.733 > 0.05). There is a significant differencein the level of awareness of undergraduates on the concept of climate change based on school ownership (t= 0.013 <0.05).The study concluded that climate change education should be structured and embedded in the curricula of schools atall levels and that training, re-training, empowerment or enlightenment of the public and stakeholders in climatechange should be carried out without bias, discrimination or marginalization of any form.